


Here Be Monsters

by TangentiaLives



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama & Romance, F/M, Happy Ending, Pining, Romance, Werewolf!Bill Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29967162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TangentiaLives/pseuds/TangentiaLives
Summary: Hermione was close to him. Close enough that he could reach out and run his hands through that hair. Close enough he could bend over and smell her natural scent, that of lemons and parchment and sweet, fall leaves, at the join of her shoulder and neck. Close enough that he could nip at the bow of her lip.But he didn’t do any of that. Monster he may be, he still had some control, and just because she appealed to the animal in him didn’t mean that he would act upon it.Besides, monsters didn’t get nice things, and Hermione Granger was absolutely, unequivocally a nice thing.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bill Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33
Collections: Midnight Moonrise Fest 2021





	Here Be Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> This was created for the Midnight Moonrise Fest in 2021. Thanks to Kirsty and the admins for putting it on! Go check out the other fics: they're great!
> 
> As always, a sincere and heartfelt thanks to Constance for helping me out and to Carrie for checking for flow and continuity. This fic did _not_ want to come out and play.

Bill paced the length of his bedroom—his empty bedroom, the bedroom that housed only him, his bed, a half-filled dresser, and the hollow spaces where his dreams once took up space—and watched as tendrils of the moon crept further across the floor until they spilled over his feet. His eyes narrowed and he growled, the rumbling sound of his chest belying, once more, just how inhuman he was and just how much more inhuman he would become once the moon hung full and menacing and yellow in the night sky the following evening.

Even before—even before— _before_ , Fleur had always laughingly joked that they were like the children's story of the beauty who tangled with the beast, what with her stunning looks and his hulking, ungainly form. "Eet is lucky that I am 'ere to tame you, eez is not, _mon amor_?" she often teased him before bestowing a kiss upon his lips.

He had let himself be tamed, though he had not truly needed it. But now, though, when he had been made a beast in truth...what happened when the beauty died and the fabled beast well and truly became one with each turn of the moon? Who tamed him, then?

He bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. It was too bad there wasn't a desperate mob or determined hunter to track him down and put him out of his misery. It might even be a blessing – it _would_ be a blessing, to flee this world, once so bright but now so dark and dreamless – but he couldn't find it in himself to put himself down like the animal he was. So he had, instead, locked himself in this cabin deep within the woods, where nobody could hear his screams as they turned first to howls and then back to cries, and ignored the visits of his friends and his family until their visits petered off, leaving just him and the gaping maw of silence.

It was just as it should be. After all, monsters didn't get happy endings.

His bones cracked a little as his joints became more limber and he began to salivate a bit more. The moon would not dominate him until tomorrow, but its command was strong this night regardless. His craving for raw meat grew almost unbearable, and his lip lifted in a silent snarl as he resisted the urge to go grab some meat from the cold box.

"William Weasley!" The sudden crack of apparition was followed almost immediately by the sound of _her_ voice calling his name as she forcefully pounded on his door. "You had better open the door right this instant.

"Go. Away." The words ripped out of him in a snarl that could charitably be called human and uncharitably be called wolfish.

"I'm not going away until you open the door!"

It was Granger. It was _always_ Granger. Out of everyone, she was the most stubborn, always visiting, always refusing to take no for an answer, always, always, _always_ arriving with Wolfsbane the night before the full moon.

"I'm not taking it."

He could hear the rustle of her clothes as she shifted her weight to the other foot. "Can we just skip the fight for once?" Her voice was exhausted in a way he wasn't sure he'd heard it before. "Please, Bill. Just take the potion. You always do."

Conflicting urges battled within him as he tilted his head. He wanted to strike out and fight with her to prove his dominance, but the more human side of him made him pause. Why did she sound so tired? What was wrong? Even the wolf, so ascendent and close to the surface, wanted to know.

It was quick work to prowl through the house and throw the front door open. His sharpened vision took in the sight of Hermione in one fell swoop, cataloguing her slumped shoulders, tired eyes, and absolutely haggard appearance. Her clothes hung on her, a blouse that had fit well now hanging on her slight frame.

His nose twitched as he sniffed the air, trying to scent if she was ill. "What's happened to you?" he demanded. "You look terrible."

"Thank you," she said with terrible patience. "It's nothing. Here. Take the potion." She drew a long rectangular box out of her purse and passed it over, careful not to jostle the phial within although the box was padded.

He took the potion but caught her wrist with his other hand as she withdrew it, careful not to make his grip too tight. "What's wrong. Tell me."

She closed her eyes before reopening them. "It's nothing, Bill." Her tone was sharp. "Why do you care? All you ever do when you see me is tell me to go away."

He ground his teeth together and dropped her wrist as if it were scalding hot. "You're right. I don't care."

And with that, he stepped back inside and slammed the door.

For a long moment, he didn't hear any movement on the other side. At last, the sound of her exhaling reached his ears, and then he heard something hit the wood of the door with a gentle thud. A hand, perhaps? "I'm so tired," she whispered, the words clearly meant for her ears alone. "I'm just so tired."

His hand was on the doorknob when the unmistakable sound of apparition rent the still air. He had missed his chance. She was gone.

It wasn't as though he really cared, so why did the sight of Hermione, annoying, irritating, persistent, consistent Hermione, stick in his mind through the next month? She hadn't come to talk to him halfway through the month as she usually did so they could devolve to their typical scathing exchanges where she questioned his decisions and he snapped back at her about her own, what little he knew about them.

It was unusual. It was disquieting. He did not like it.

When the moon grew full and heavy again, Bill found himself pacing the small living room, more restless than usual at the prospect of Hermione's arrival. There was something wrong. Something off. He would ask her, and she would tell him, and he would go and kill whatever had made her upset.

It was only right, he reasoned, considering the favour she was doing him—that she _thought_ she was doing him. Potion or not, a beast was still a beast, and he deserved every bit of pain he got when he turned without drinking it. But the mindlessness and the fear of not knowing what he had done the night before often proved too terrifying to experience once more, so he ended up drinking the damned thing anyway.

Consumption or not, Hermione had earned a spot on the incredibly short list of people Bill tolerated willingly. He was fairly certain she made the potion herself before bringing it here, directly to him. All of this had been completed without anyone even asking her to do it, yet she had. Again and again, consistent and constant despite his poor temper and lack of gratitude. He didn't understand it.

At different points, he had even resented her for making him decide each month what he would do. But as time passed, he grew less resentful and more begrudgingly thankful for the kindness she showed him. Sharp though their exchanges might often be, the underlying reason they existed at was attributable to kindness, pure and simple. Hermione's kindness.

And so, even if he did not care—and truly he did not—it behooved him to discover what had upset her so, if only to ensure the stench of her unhappiness did not stink up the area by his front door.

The familiar sound of her apparition cracked through the air, and he was at the door in moments. She barely got to knock once before he was wrenching it open, the door banging against the wall.

Hermione smelled terrible, like rotten apples and mildewed hay. Her hair was even wilder than usual, those curls of her pointing in all directions, and the bags under her eyes had darkened to a deep, bruised purple blue.

"You didn't come like you always do," he stated, his nails digging into the wood of the door frame as he stared at her. "Where were you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "The world doesn't revolve around you, Bill. I had to go somewhere." Her scent soured even further. "Someone to see."

"Who are they? They make you scared." His nostrils flared. "They make you sad. Stop seeing them."

Hermione reared back, her lips pressing tightly together. "I know you can't control it, especially with it being so close to the moon and all, but keep your interpretations of my scent to yourself. And for Merlin's sake, don't tell me who to see. It's not your business. Besides, I had to."

Unable to help himself, he took a step forward, looming over her petite form. "It is my business," he growled, "when you bring it to my doorstep."

"I didn't bring it to your doorstep!" she snapped. Moments later, she took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out. "Look. Here's the potion. Take it."

Just like always, she handed it over, and he closed his hand around the box, the wood digging into his palm. This time, though, he bent over and placed the precious box the phial was nested in on the ground out of harm's way and focussed his attention back on her. "Granger. Hermione." His voice was a low rumble. "What's happened? I...want to help."

Her smile was terrible. "I don't think there's much you can do, Bill. There's nothing anyone can do." The smell of salt alerted him to the tears swimming in her eyes, which made their hazel colour brighter.

Another step toward her. He was out of the house, now, the dirt, moss, and grass of the forest floor digging into his feet. Hermione was close to him. Close enough that he could reach out and run his hands through that hair. Close enough he could bend over and smell her natural scent, that of lemons and parchment and sweet, fall leaves, at the join of her shoulder and neck. Close enough that he could nip at the bow of her lip.

But he didn't do any of that. Monster he may be, he still had some control, and just because she appealed to the animal in him didn't mean that he would act upon it.

Besides, monsters didn't get nice things, and Hermione Granger was absolutely, unequivocally a nice thing.

"Don't cry." He inhaled sharply when her lip trembled. "I don't like the smell."

Her laugh was wet. "You don't like the smell of anything, Bill."

That wasn't true, but her incipient crying seemed staved off, at least, so he would take it. "Just tell me what happened."

Her smile dropped right off her lips. "I don't want to talk about it." Her tone was final. As she stepped back from him, she resettled her Gryffindor red robes on her shoulders and took a deep breath. Looking up at him, she said, "I'll see you next month."

And before he could keep her there, she was gone.

She didn't come halfway through the next month. In fact, she didn't come at all.

Bill did _not_ like that. In fact, he disliked that so much that he forced himself into a semblance of humanity, donning the things that helped others think _human_ instead of _beast shaped like a human_. Robes, shoes, trousers, jumper, wand. Hair brushed and tied back. Glamour on his face and arm to hide the slashes and bite marks. Button down shirt tucked in, one collar neatly laid out over the other; tapered points over rounded edges.

When he looked at himself in the mirror in the loo, he saw a wizard. When he smiled, though...that was when it became apparent that he was not _only_ a wizard, for wizards did not smile with a feral gleam in their eyes and with all their teeth bared.

No, he was not a wizard at all, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that people let him in wherever he needed to go.

He stalked out of the door and thought of his quarry. Where _would_ she go? Bookshop? Pub? Work? Home? Family? Friends.

Friends. Her friends were part of his own pack—Ron, Ginny, Harry. Yes, he'd visit them first. It was convenient that they all lived together.

"Bill?" Ron looked as though he thought he were hallucinating. "What're you doing here? I didn't even know you left your house!"

"I don't. Except for the forest. Have you seen Hermione?"

If possible, his younger brother's expression grew even more flabberghasted. "'Mione? What for?" Abruptly, he scowled. "Did you do something to upset her? She's going through enough as it is."

"No," Bill replied, irritated. The fabric of his shirt against his neck chafed his skin. "She didn't show up last month, either halfway through or to give me the Wolfsbane."

If there was one thing Ronald Weasley wasn't good at it, it was hiding his feelings. Right now, Bill could see that he knew precisely why she didn't show up. He also saw that Ron wasn't going to tell him: he had that stubborn set to his chin and shoulders he got when he decided something and wasn't going to budge. "Is that so?" his youngest brother finally settled on, attempting for noncommittal and falling flat.

"Yes, that is so." He crossed his arms, the slant of his mouth telling Ron he knew he was full of shite but not going to call him on it. "Where are Harry and Ginny?"

"Ah." Ron shifted on his feet, guilt coming from him in waves. There was something going on here. "Harry? I'm not sure. But Gin? She's at the Hog's Head, catching up with some of her friends."

"The Hog's Head?" he couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice.

Ron shrugged. "Don't ask me. It's Gin. She does what she wants."

Hmm. At least that was one lead, but he was nothing if not straightforward these days. "Ron, where's Hermione? I know you know where she is."

It was Ron's turn to cross his arms. "No, I don't." _A lie_. He smelled it. "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you. Leave her be, Bill. I don't know what's going on between the two of you, but if you've had a row or some kind of falling out, it's not the time to push at her."

"I'm not going to," he snapped impatiently. "I want to help her. Something is wrong. I could smell it on her. She wouldn't tell me, and now she hasn't shown up. I want to find her. I'll fix it."

Ron tilted his head to the side just the slightest as his brows rose slowly in incredulity. "You want to...nope. Nope." He shook his head and raised his hands. "I'm staying out of this one. I don't know where she is."

The wolf within him lunged, demanding to pin Ron to the ground and threaten him until he did. But it was Ron, his brother, his _packmate_ , who was refusing to tell him, so the wolf settled for pursuing Ginny.

"Fine. I'll go find Ginny. She'll tell me."

As he prepared to apparate, Ron's hand snapped out, grabbing his shoulder. "Bill." A dull red flush crept up Ron's neck and cheeks. "It's good to see you out." Ron swallowed. "I...I've missed seeing you. Come 'round again, yeah? We can get take-away and talk about the pretty birds I see at work. It would be fun."

Bill stood as if nailed in place. There was nothing but honesty in his brother's entire demeanour, his face open and easy to read. Ron meant what he said. He had missed Bill, even though they hadn't ever been particularly close because of their age difference.

But Bill wasn't the Bill that Ron had known his whole life. "I'm different. I don't do things like that any more."

"Just because you're different doesn't mean I don't want to see you," Ron insisted, his grip tightening on Bill's shoulder. "It doesn't matter that you're a werewolf. It doesn't matter that you live in a cabin and don't let anyone see you. It doesn't matter if you howl at the moon and eat bunnies. None of that matters to me—to any of us. We still love you. So just...just answer our owls, yeah? We don't have to do take-away. I can come run through the forest with you." His grin was self-deprecating. "My auror training will be good for something."

The prospect interested him, and if he were being completely truthful, it would be nice to spend time with one of his pack. But…

"Even though you say that," he bit out, "will you be horrified when you see me actually do it?"

"Bill." Ron's look was unimpressed. "I lived in a tent with two other people while on the run for months. You have no idea what we did to survive. No idea what we've seen. I don't care if you eat a bunny right in front of me while you're a human. It can't be worse than other things that have happened in front of me."

There was a hunted, haunted quality in his eyes that Bill never thought he'd see. It appeared he'd missed Ron growing up. The sometimes spoiled, often immature boy had become a man that Bill didn't know, but perhaps he could.

But first, Hermione.

"Fine," he said tersely. "Come by one day a week after the next full moon. We'll run."

With that, he apparated straight to the Hog's Head. The smell coming from it made him recoil, as did the sheer amount of sound. There was a reason that he preferred solitude – why most wolves, with exceptions like Remus Lupin, preferred solitude. His senses catalogued _everything_ , even the things he wished they did not.

It was short work finding Ginny, though he had to wade through a crowd of merry-making folk who had decided to spend their evening at Aberforth Dumbledore's establishment. Most of them quickly made space for them as he arrowed his way through the crowd, smiles dropping off their faces as they registered his ferocious, scowling expression.

"Ginny."

" _Bill_?" She was just as astonished as Ron, and a close cousin to guilt settled in his stomach. It had seemed the obvious choice, the _only_ choice, to lock himself away from everyone when this all started, but...well.

No. He was still a monster, and monsters didn't get nice things.

Ginny didn't seem to subscribe to that motto, however, choosing instead to throw herself off her barstool and hurl herself into his arms in a giant hug. Pulling away after a protracted moment, she looked up into his eyes and gave him a light shove. "You git. It's about bloody time you stopped sulking long enough to see your family. Pint?"

"I was not sulking, Ginevra."

"Oh stop with the menacing act, Bill. Yeah, you're not how you used to be. Fine. It's not like we all stayed the same." Her nostrils flared, and something sharp and painful crossed her face before she schooled her expression. "We all lost people, not just you." _Fred_. "But it felt like we lost you, too."

Guilt curdled in his stomach, unpleasant and weighty. Had he really been so caught up that he'd not been able to see how everyone else was suffering? "I...sorry."

"You'd better be." Her words were quick and merciless. "Don't do it again. For Merlin's sake, just come to dinner on Sundays, at least. You can eat raw meat straight off the skewer for all we care. Just...Bill. Don't make Mum think she's lost two of us."

He bowed his head for a moment, his lips pressed together. "In a way, she did. I'm a monster, Gin. I'm not who I used to be."

"And you think Mum cares about that? That any of us care about that, even after all I just said?" Hurt tightened the corners of her eyes. "Go away, Bill. Go away, but come to dinner, or I'll hunt you down and drag you there myself."

Even though he was single minded in his hunt for Hermione, he hadn't been willing to push the conversation with Ginny, which meant he had no direction at all with which to move forward. His instincts warring with the human side of him, insisting that he go back to Ginny and get more information from her no matter what it took, but the human side of him overwhelmed them. He wouldn't hurt or threaten his sister, not even to get what he wanted.

It was as he was chopping wood for the fire that it occurred to him. Wood. The box. The boxes that the phials of Wolfsbane came in. They had potential.

He went into the house, carelessly dropping a load of firewood by the entrance as he did so, and went into the extra bedroom. For some reason, he had kept the small, rectangular boxes that Hermione brought the Wolfsbane in. It wasn't as though he could use them for anything, as the padding inside was designed to hold one potion phial, but he couldn't bring himself to part with them.

It was quick work to open them, his eyes scanning the interiors for the hint of a—ah. "There you are," he murmured, reaching out and gently picking up a strand of hair caught between the wood of the box and the padding.

The location spell was something he had done multiple times when he was still working at Gringotts, and the incantation sprang from his lips easily as he stared at the spelled map of the world and focussed on her image in his mind. Moments later, he knew exactly where she was, the location scarlet and slowly pulsing on the map. "I've found you, little rabbit." He tapped the map. "I've got you now."

It took some grit, his nose, and sheer stubbornness to flush her out of her hidey hole once he made it to the general neighbourhood the map had pointed him at, but he had been able to sniff out which building she lived in and then the specific flat based on the concentration of her smell. There was one door on the third floor that smelled overwhelmingly like her — and like Harry, Ginny, Ron, and a few others, too.

Smartly, he rapped on the door, his blood hot. He'd found her, and now he'd get some answers. At his knock, he heard someone shift within, but they never came to the door. Frowning, he rapped the door again, the sound more insistent. "Answer the door," he called, "or I'll keep knocking."

"Whoever you are, go away!" Came her voice, a distant, taut thread of sound. "I don't want company."

"Answer. The. Door." Bill growled. "I didn't hunt you down for nothing. I want to talk to you."

There was a pause, and then he heard a slow, heavy tread as Hermione came to the door. Moments later, the door opened and she stood there with empty eyes and sallow skin, her hair a rat's nest of unbrushed curls. "Bill. What do you want."

"You look terrible. What happened?" He stepped forward, crowding her as he bent over and smelled the curve of her neck. Sickness and sorrow. Pain and loss. Something disastrous had occurred.

Her face remained a hollowed out shell of what it usually was. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you in danger?" he pressed. "Is it an enemy? A Death Eater? What is it?"

Her nostrils flared the slightest bit. "Isn't it enough that you've come all this way to bother me for your own curiosity? What can't you understand? I don't want to talk about it. Leave it alone."

"I can't leave it alone." He scowled at her. "You're my—you're—" His instincts buzzed, confused. She was…

It didn't matter.

"I want to help," he finally ground out. "You've helped me. Let me return the favour."

"Is this some werewolf thing? I don't expect repayment, and I don't need help." Her lip quivered. "I'm fine. I'm dealing with it."

"Is this what dealing with it looks like?" He raked an eye down her form. "I've seen people with grisly injuries who look better off than you do. This isn't any good."

"All this coming from a man who hides away to cope with his own problems?" Her tone had switched from flat to razor sharp, the knife edge of her words cutting. "I don't need advice from you, thanks."

He snarled at that, anger pulsing through his veins. "Monsters don't get nice things. I'm doing a service by staying away."

Something in her expression dropped at his words. "Monsters don't get nice things," she murmured. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm doing the right thing in staying away, too."

"What?" He shook his head in denial. "Why would you do that? You're not a monster."

Her face crumpled in on itself before it smoothed out. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Because you won't tell me!" He surged forward and took her by her shoulders, careful not to grip too tightly in his temper. "Hermione. I have done things that you could not even imagine. I am a werewolf. I am part of the tales mothers tell their children to make them behave. There is nothing that you have done or that you are facing that will make me think less of you. I am the monster. You are not."

Her lip quivered. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

The skin of her cheek was feather soft against the pads of his fingers as he cupped her jaw and stroked his thumb across her cheek. "Then let me be sure. Tell me, sweet one. What's happened to make you so? Let me ease your burdens."

"I...it's my parents." She looked away even as her hand came up to gently grip his wrist. "They're…they're dead, and it's all my fault." In a whisper, she confessed, "I...I killed them, Bill."

"Somehow, I doubt that," he told her as he gently nudged her inside and closed the door behind them. "You're fierce, that's true, and I know you did things during the war that you're not proud of, but you try your hardest. You do your best to make things better, to fight for those who can't fight for themselves, to care for those who can't care for themselves or who don't want to." He didn't dwell on what category he likely fit in, instead continuing, "The kind of person you are is not the kind of person who kills their parents."

"You're wrong." She dropped his wrist and turned away, hunching in on herself and wrapping her arms around her torso. "You're wrong. I did. I killed them. I killed them, and it's my fault. Mine and mine alone. I'm a monster. A monster!"

He took a step closer to her until he was almost flush with her, bending over so his face rested in her hair as his hands gently, barely, grazingly touched her hips. "You're not a monster," he rumbled. "You're sweet and good and kind. You deserve everything the world has to offer."

She huffed, the sound rife with disbelief. "Do good people Obliviate their parents? Do kind people pack them off to Australia to start their lives anew?" Her voice began to shake and her body to tremble. "If I'm good, Bill...if I deserve good things, as you say, then why were the charms irreversible? And why, when I went back a second time with a new way to try and get their memories back, did I discover that they had been killed in some stupid, useless muggle accident?"

His hands spasmed before he consciously gentled them, sliding one up her arm to turn her around. When she refused to meet his gaze, focussing instead on the floor, he tilted her chin up with one finger. "You didn't kill them."

A tear slipped down her cheek, then another, and then another, until she was steadily crying. She didn't even seem to realize it, her hazel eyes fastened to his. "It's my fault. I sent them to Australia. They wouldn't have been there if not for me."

"But you didn't kill them yourself."

"I just as good as," she insisted. "I had the idea. I cast the spells. I sent them there. I _left_ them there."

"And you did it because you were trying to save them from almost certain death here. You and I both know that the Death Eaters would have found them and killed them."

"Surely there must have been a different way." She said the words with the air of someone who had been saying them for a long, long time. "Somehow. Some way."

"Don't think like that." He couldn't resist any longer, swiping her tears from her face. "I ask myself the same thing, and all it does is hurt me."

"You do?"

Nodding, he said, "I do." The moment felt intimate, quiet. "I'm the monster in the room, Hermione. I am _literally_ a monster. A werewolf."

Her face collapsed into a ferocious scowl. "Being a werewolf does not make you a monster, William Weasley."

"Doesn't it?" He leant in and purposefully inhaled in the soft skin of her throat where her pulse rabbited beneath her skin. "I crave meat. I howl at the moon. I kill small, defenseless creatures and don't remember it. I smell feelings, I hear everything, and I can see in the dark. Most importantly—" He paused, the words painful to get out. "Most importantly, Fleur died because of me. That, more than anything, makes me a monster."

"What happened?" Her question was soft, less than a whisper, but it hung in the air.

He closed his eyes. Even though it had been so long, now — a year, almost, since that fateful June night only a few weeks after what became known as the Battle of Hogwarts — Fleur's screams still rang in his ears and he could still taste the copper scent of blood. "We were out on a mission trying to hunt down a group of Voldemort's followers. We'd gotten intel that there was a small group of them, including Greyback himself, hiding in a remote forest in Wales, so a ten or so of us were dispatched to round them up. Unfortunately, the information was wrong about how many were there, and when we got there it was clear that we were vastly outnumbered."

"The odds were stacked wildly against us. The fighting was brutal, coming from all corners. I was taking on Greyback since I had some of the werewolf's instincts—he'd scratched me, after all, at the Astronomy tower—but I was overpowered." He swallowed, remembering the way Greyback had pinned him to the ground with a grip around his throat, his teeth bared and eyes malevolent only moments before he bent down and savagely bit him. "When I was down, Fleur was left unprotected. She hadn't seen me go down and assumed I was still protecting her back. One of Greyback's wolves attacked her from behind and just…he….She died." Even now, he couldn't think of what had happened to her, his beauty. Her screams haunted his dreams.

"Oh, Bill." Hermione reached out and took one of his hands between both of hers. "I'm so sorry. But...it's not your fault, don't you see?"

"Isn't it? If I had only been stronger. If I had only been able to fend off Greyback instead of lying down and taking it, she wouldn't be dead. Now I'm one of them. I'm the same kind of monster who killed my wife."

"That's ridiculous." She slid her hand up to cup his cheek, forcing him to look at her. "You were in a fight where you were outnumbered, just as you said, and you were actively fighting for your own life when it happened. War is messy, Bill. It's chaos. It's instinct and reaction. You didn't cast the killing curse on Fleur. You didn't directly cause her death. Stop blaming yourself for something you didn't do. Stop hating yourself for events out of your control."

He couldn't understand how her hazel eyes remained non judgmental, instead showing only understanding and empathy. It was the first time he'd told anyone the entire truth, and her reaction soothed something cracked and brittle within him. "I feel responsible," he confessed, voice low. "I can't stop thinking of the way she screamed when it happened. Why did it happen to her? Why couldn't it have happened to me? She should have lived, not me."

"I know that feeling," she replied, "I've tortured myself with thoughts just like that. What if I hadn't sent my parents to Australia? What if I had told them what was happening instead of Obliviating them? What if, what if, what if."

"But that's different," he argued. "You were protecting them."

"Isn't that exactly what you were trying to do, too? Fighting together, protecting Fleur's back? Both of us were trying to protect the ones we loved." Her voice cracked. "Both of us failed. But you see, Bill, you're not a monster. You're just lost."

His jaw worked. Could it be true? Could he find absolution in her words?

"If I'm not a monster," he said finally, "then you have to agree that you're not one, either." At her sound of protest, he pressed the bridge of his nose against hers as he said intently, "Think on what you just told me. You were trying your best to protect the ones you loved, and you didn't directly cause their deaths. No. If you say I'm not a monster, then you have to say the same for yourself. You have to forgive yourself. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I can't bear seeing anyone. Once they know what's happened, I'm worried they won't look at me the same way anymore. They won't love me."

Bill thought about Ron's words and Ginny's expression and how they'd loved and missed him even after all this time and who he was and _what_ he was before he considered how he'd hunted Hermione down to the exclusion of all else, his blood singing for him to find her, to catch her, to _keep_ her. "I think you'll find that's not the truth." He angled his head down and to the side, peering into her eyes. "Your friends won't blame you for it any more than I do, which is not at all. They'll love you just as I love you still, even though you've told me what you've done."

Her eyelashes fluttered against his skin as her hands, hesitant and shy, came to rest on his back. "You love me?"

"I do." At that, she brushed her mouth against his, a mere graze of lips against lips. Unsatisfied with that, he cupped the back of her head and pressed her in close, his mouth devouring hers in a tangle of lips and teeth and tongue. When he pulled away some time later, he breathed, "I couldn't stop thinking about you, missing you, wanting to irritate you and make you smile and press my teeth against your throat so I could smell your scent. It soothes me in a way that nothing else does. And even though you say I am not a monster, I am a beast, but if you could bring yourself to love me as I am now, I would treasure you."

Under his palm at her neck, he could feel her pulse slowing into something steadier. Her scent brightened, the smell of parchment and leaves flowering in the air. "I never thought I could have you." Tremulously, she smiled up at him. "I've...had feelings for you for months, now, but I told myself it was too soon, that you needed more time. I didn't want to disrespect your relationship with Fleur or her memory, but Bill, I love you too." She huffed a laugh and wryly added, "Even when you're surly and bad-tempered."

Bill thought of Fleur's loving gaze, and how one night she had pushed a lock of his hair out of his face as she said, "I want you to be 'appy, Bill. That eez what I want most in ze world, out of everything. Promise me you'll be 'appy."

Gently, he kissed the side of Hermione's jaw before brushing his lips over her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, and finally her mouth. "Then let us learn not to be monsters together, my Hermione, my sweet one. I would have it no other way."

**Author's Note:**

> Why I almost always use Bill for festival fics, I do not know. Can't stop, won't stop. #AllAboardtheBillTrain
> 
> Hope you enjoyed - please leave a review and let me know what you think!


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